Bright Lights Film Journal

Bringing Down the Establishment: The Graduate and End of the Road: A Dialogue

Robert Castle — Mon, 08 May 2023 17:00:24 +0000

The subsequent dialogue between the two films developed after much negotiation and cajoling. They were inclined to be hostile to the other. I tried to inform them about their common[...]

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Mary Astor: Prisoner of Kicks

Dan Callahan — Wed, 03 May 2023 17:00:06 +0000

Mary Astor was born May 3, 1906 and died September 25, 1987. In honor of this superb star, who was also a gifted novelist and memoirist and a sexually adventurous free-thinker[...]

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The Demiurge in the American Eyesore: Night Tide

Tom Sutpen — Sat, 29 Apr 2023 17:00:06 +0000

If Curtis Harrington had not had the ruined mall of hell unveiled to the world in 1905 as Venice of America as a setting for his occult fable, he might[...]

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False Positive: Talking Betty Blues

Steve Johnson — Sat, 22 Apr 2023 17:00:18 +0000

to Lyssa You either go mad, or you learn about metaphors. – Allie Light * * * fou (masculine): crazy, mad, madman; see l’amour fou folle (feminine): crazy, mad, madwoman;[...]

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The Evolution of the “Slacker-Sleuth” in The Big Lebowski and Under the Silver Lake

Nathan Saad — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 17:00:09 +0000

Whereas the Dude is a wholly passive protagonist, thrown begrudgingly into the chaos of conspiracy by the force of pure coincidence and designs of other, more motivated actors, Under the[...]

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Delphine Seyrig: The Eternal Return

Dan Callahan — Mon, 10 Apr 2023 17:00:00 +0000

"Seyrig is capable of stopping an entire film with one decisive physical gesture, one smile, one glare, one sound from her smoky, murmuring voice."

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Leaving the World of “The Truman Show”

Robert Castle — Sun, 02 Apr 2023 17:00:04 +0000

“Where’s the TV Guide?” – last line of the film * * * Introduction Truman Burbank exits the only world he knows. We – the television audience in the film,[...]

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Some Like It Not: The Key to Successful Relationships in the Films of Billy Wilder

Jason Carpenter — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 17:00:51 +0000

Billy Wilder (1906-2002) died on March 27, age 95. We honor him by reposting Jason Carpenter’s fine analysis of the master’s work, first published in Bright Lights in 2016. *[...]

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Aftersun: The Skin of Filmic Memory

Vlad Dima — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 23:37:37 +0000

We all wait for everything to come into focus, and if we are lucky, we might eventually get access to one snapshot that tells an incomplete story. So naturally, while[...]

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Vicious Circle: John Whitney and the Military Origins of Early CGI

Selen Ozturk — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 12:40:17 +0000

John Whitney himself envisioned nothing more and nothing less for the future of CGI than a union of space and time: “Time has become visual.” But all film deals in[...]

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